Last year the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam opened the 17th century painting by the Dutch master Johannes Vermeer. When he showed 35 works by the 28th century master, everyone knew it was going to be an extraordinary experience. But Taco Dibbits, the museum’s general manager, was surprised that 654,000 tickets were sold for the simply titled show. Vermeer. A month after opening, The Times He announced in London that the “Vermeer craze” was in full swing, with everyone shaking their contacts for a ticket as official sales closed. The only way to get a place was to join the Rijksmuseum’s “Friends” program until that scheme was temporarily closed.
According to Dibbits, the biggest surprise was the huge level of international interest in the exhibition, which ran from February 10 to June 4, 2023. “I’m one of those people who thinks no one will come when I throw a party,” he says. “I thought we would sell out and probably have about half a million visitors. We ended up with 650,000, but we could have easily sold two million tickets. That’s something I didn’t expect.”
As the dust settles on the show, one of the most successful in the history of the Dutch national museum, the lessons learned are about easing the huge flow of visitors, giving access to all groups and also thinking about who else might benefit.
I always think that when I plan a party, no one will come.
Taco Dibbits, Director General of the Rijksmuseum
It was decided from the start to use timed reservations and limit the number of visitors, Dibbits says. “We knew it would be a show that would attract a lot of attention and we immediately decided to limit the number of tickets we would sell, in order to give the visitor a better experience. So we started with a relatively small amount and then went up, testing the experience. At a certain point, the crowd seemed too crowded and we stopped the number of entries [per time block]. It was how to give the visitor the best experience but to have as many people as possible”.
A challenge was how to manage two different flows of visitors: the regular visitors to the museum – 2.7 million of them last year – and Vermeer the visitors The Rijksmuseum created a room full of self-service changing rooms in the Philips Wing, saving time from waiting in the regular laundry line. “Was [a practical lesson] immediately, at the entrance, to separate those two streams,” says Dibbits. “For the first time, we worked with lockers: people come and want to take off their coat, because they don’t have to wait in line.”
But one problem with booking times was making sure the show was accessible to everyone. “If you sell tickets online only with block times, and it’s likely to sell out very quickly, you get a more traditional audience: people who have access to mobile phones, who have the ability to buy tickets online, a bank account,” he says. “And you get people who plan ahead, usually of a certain age; I’m in that bracket. Thus, in the last days of the exhibition, we opened it all night; we gave these tickets away for free, and we advertised on sites frequented by young people to bring in a young audience. Online booking is a great booking tool to regulate flow and experience, but we still need to find ways to have diversity.’
The museum also organized special evenings for the anti-crowd crowd, the hypersensitive and the neuro-diverse. “There are people who have special needs to visit a museum, and it’s really important to think about whether you’re able to accommodate them,” says Dibbits.
Unfortunately, ticket sales were inevitable. “You can’t do anything against people buying tickets and selling them online – it’s the same with pop concerts and not something you can really avoid,” says Dibbits.
Yellow fever: high level of interest Pokémon x Van Gogh Museum the show featured visitors trying to buy souvenir tickets, as well as reports of staff misconduct Photo: The Pokémon Company International
It was a phenomenon that took the nearby Van Gogh Museum by surprise in 2023 when it opened its popular show, Pokémon x Van Gogh Museum. It launched in September with a special evening for press, influencers and museum staff, but staff privately admitted they were horrified when the exhibition’s promotional material took on a life of its own.
Visitors—including children—walked away with a special free Pokemon card in the style of Van Gogh. Self portrait with gray felt hat, offering 40 euros to sell them, while online prices spiraled. Four museum employees were reportedly fired for alleged misconduct involving the purchase and sale of themed merchandise.
The Van Gogh Museum declined to speak Art Newspaper about the lessons learned. It received 1.7 million visitors in 2023, but says it has “focused on quality from quantity”. The effort to reach new audiences continues: there are monthly yoga sessions, for example, and a new program on mental well-being.
Back at the Rijksmuseum, Dibbits says there are responsibilities that come with a blockbuster, although he hesitates to use that term, because only the public can decide whether something is good or not. One is to tempt people to visit your other artistic offerings while they’re there. “For 17th-century art to be relevant, you have to do a show every now and then with a name they know,” he says. “Then, once they’re in, you can help them discover a lot more. That’s basically the thinking behind a blockbuster.”
Bringing together a group of masterpieces is also incredibly helpful for research, according to Dibbits, and the exhibition showed that many people are fascinated by what the latest research techniques can reveal about great artists. “We found there was a lot of interest in the research we did for the exhibition,” he says. “You have to find a hook to get people in, an angle that’s interesting to them.”
The director also believes that larger museums should try to help smaller ones when they put on such popular shows. The Rijksmuseum worked closely with the Vermeer Centrum in Delft, which held an exhibition on the artist’s time and saw a huge increase in visitors. “I think that’s an obligation, when you do these exhibitions, you also try to do it with the smaller regional museums, people visit there and it’s good for everyone,” he says.
Finally, it’s worth thinking about what happens to the materials used for such a show. In this case, hundreds of meters of floor-to-ceiling curtains served triple duty. They helped to fill ten large rooms, when the number of paintings exhibited was rather small; they had a great acoustic effect to reduce the noise of large crowds; and they made a great gift.
“With a successful exhibition, you have to think about the impact and also about the environment,” says Dibbits. “We made bags out of curtains and distributed them to Voedselbank, a charity that distributes food. They were distributed to people who couldn’t afford curtains, and curtains are expensive! They were gone in a few seconds.’
